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167Still Pessimistic about First-Person AuthorityJournal of Philosophical Research 48 133-148. 2023.This paper aims to support my (2018) skeptical position on the possibility of a correct and philosophically significant specification of first-person authority. For this purpose, I critically examine the proposals presented by Doyle (2021) and Winokur (2022) in response to my position and argue that while these proposals contain some ingenious ideas, they ultimately fall short of providing correct and philosophically significant specifications. Ultimately, the search for an adequate specificatio…Read more
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290A Remark on the Bank CasesActa Analytica 37 (4): 519-529. 2022.Since their formulation by Keith DeRose (1992), the so-called bank cases have played a major role in the discussion about whether knowledge depends on practical factors. According to the proponents of pragmatic encroachment, the proper conclusion to be drawn from the bank cases and similar examples is that knowledge of a proposition _p_ does not supervene on one’s evidence for or against _p_. In my view, this conclusion is ill-founded. The reason is that the bank cases and similar examples suffe…Read more
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409Colour hallucination: In defence of externalist representationalismAnalysis 82 (1): 3-7. 2022.In a recent paper, Gow raised a new and interesting problem for externalist representationalism, the conclusion of which is that its proponents are unable to provide an acceptable account of the phenomenal character of colour hallucination. In contrast to Gow, we do not believe that the problem is particularly severe – indeed, that there is any problem at all. Thus our aim is to defend externalist representationalism against the problem raised by Gow. To this end, we will first reconstruct her r…Read more
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351Die Begriffsanalyse im 21. Jahrhundert: Eine Verteidigung gegen zeitgenössische Einwände, written by Nicole RathgebGrazer Philosophische Studien 98 (2): 349-357. 2021.
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389The Distinct Existences Argument RevisitedSynthese (3-4): 1-21. 2021.The aim of this paper is to take a fresh look at a discussion about the distinct existences argument that took place between David Armstrong and Frank Jackson more than fifty years ago. I will try to show that Armstrong’s argument can be successfully defended against Jackson’s objections (albeit at the price of certain concessions concerning Armstrong’s view on the meaning of psychological terms as well as his conception of universals). Focusing on two counterexamples that Jackson put forward ag…Read more
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943„Die Ontologie von Geist: Das Sein von Wahrnehmung, Bewusstsein, Intentionalität und Handeln“In Jan Urbich & Jörg Zimmer (eds.), Handbuch Ontologie, Metzler. pp. 436-442. 2020.
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11Repräsentation, Innerlichkeit und Normalität (review)Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 67 (4): 702-713. 2019.
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619Repräsentation, Innerlichkeit und NormalitätDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 67 (4): 702-13. 2019.
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683Urteilen, Glauben, Bewusstsein: Ein Kommentar zu Andreas Kemmerlings Glauben. Essay über einen BegriffZeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 73 (2): 279-284. 2019.
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866IntrospektionIn Martin Grajner & Guido Melchior (eds.), Handbuch Erkenntnistheorie, Metzler. pp. 129-135. 2019.
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1540The Aporetic Structure of Philosophical ProblemsJournal of Didactics of Philosophy 3 ((1)): 5-18. 2019.The central idea of this essay is that philosophical thinking revolves around aporetic clusters, i.e., sets of individually plausible, but collectively inconsistent propositions. The task of philosophy is to dissolve such clusters, either by showing that the propositions in question, contrary to first impression, are compatible with each other, or by showing that it is permissible to abandon at least one of the propositions involved. This view of philosophical problems not only provides a very g…Read more
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1024The puzzle of transparency and how to solve itCanadian Journal of Philosophy 49 (7): 916-935. 2019.According to the transparency approach, achievement of self-knowledge is a two-stage process: first, the subject arrives at the judgment ‘p’; second, the subject proceeds to the judgment ‘I believe that p.’ The puzzle of transparency is to understand why the transition from the first to the second judgment is rationally permissible. After revisiting the debate between Byrne and Boyle on this matter, I present a novel solution according to which the transition is rationally permissible in virtue …Read more
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1247Is There Anything to the Authority Thesis?Journal of Philosophical Research 43 125-143. 2018.Many philosophical theories of self-knowledge can be understood as attempts to explain why self-ascriptions enjoy a certain kind of authority that other-ascriptions lack (the Authority Thesis). The aim of this paper is not to expand the stock of existing explanations but to ask whether the Authority Thesis can be adequately specified. To this end, I identify three requirements that must be met by any satisfactory specification. I conclude that the search for an adequate specification of the Auth…Read more
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915A Note on a Remark of EvansPolish Journal of Philosophy 10 (2): 7-15. 2016.In his seminal paper, ‘Can There Be Vague Objects?’ (1978), Gareth Evans advanced an argument purporting to prove that the idea of indeterminate identity is incoherent. Aware that his argument was incomplete as it stands, Evans added a remark at the end of his paper, in which he explained how the original argument needed to be modified to arrive at an explicit contradiction. This paper aims to develop a modified version of Evans’ original argument, which I argue is more promising than the modifi…Read more
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707Are Introspective Beliefs about One’s Own Visual Experiences Immediate?Grazer Philosophische Studien 95 (1). 2018.The aim of this paper is to show that introspective beliefs about one’s own current visual experiences are not immediate in the sense that what justifies them does not include other beliefs that the subject in question might possess. The argument will take the following course. First, the author explains the notions of immediacy and truth-sufficiency as they are used here. Second, the author suggests a test to determine whether a given belief lacks immediacy. Third, the author applies this test …Read more
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367Luminosity GuaranteedPacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (S1): 480-496. 2017.This article aims to show that Williamson's anti-luminosity argument does not succeed if we presuppose a constitutive connection between the phenomenal and the doxastic. In contrast to other luminists, however, my strategy is not to critically focus on the refined safety condition in terms of degrees of confidence that anti-luminists typically use in this context. Instead, I will argue that, given a certain conception of what Chalmers calls ‘direct phenomenal concepts,’ luminosity is guaranteed …Read more
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574Two‐Dimensional Modal MeinongianismRatio 29 (3): 249-267. 2015.The aim of this paper is to show that Priest's modal Meinongianism might benefit from joining forces with two-dimensionalism. For this purpose, I propose a two-dimensional solution to a problem for modal Meinongianism that is posed by Beall, Sauchelli, and Milne, and show that, by taking recourse to two-dimensionalism, divergent intuitions about the question of whether fictional characters might exist can be reconciled. Moreover, two-dimensionalism helps to rebut Kroon's argument to the conclusi…Read more
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126Is there a conceptual connection between intentionality and consciousness?Acta Analytica 22 (3): 183-188. 2007.It is argued that Searle’s argument for the thesis that there is a conceptual connection between intentionality and consciousness suffers from serious ambiguities. Searle’s argument is reconstructed as consisting of three premises that contain the notions of aspectual shape and irreducible subjectivity. Having identified two different readings of ‘aspectual shape’ and ‘irreducibly subjective,’ I conclude that each version of Searle’s argument incorporates at least one false premise.
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445Doubts about One’s Own ExistenceInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 57 (5-6): 645-668. 2014.The aim of this paper is to show that it is not irrational to doubt one’s own existence, even in the face of introspective evidence to the effect that one is currently in a certain mental state. For this purpose, I will outline a situation in which I do not exist, but which cannot be ruled out on the basis of any evidence available to me—including introspective evidence about my current mental states. I use this ‘superskeptical scenario,’ as I will call it, to formulate an argument to the conclu…Read more
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35Relationen zu PropositionenZeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 59 (4). 2005.Ich versuche zu zeigen, daß die auf Frege zurückgehende These, daß Meinungen Relationen zwischen Personen und Propositionen darstellen, nicht zwangsläufig die Frage nach der Natur des Mechanismus aufwirft, der Personen mit Propositionen verbindet. Um meine Auffassung zu begründen, lasse ich zunächst eine Überlegung Revue passieren, die meines Erachtens den stärksten Beweggrund für die Einführung von Propositionen darstellt. In diesem Zusammenhang zeigt sich, daß sich die These, daß Meinungen Rel…Read more
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503Introspection as a Game of Make‐BelieveTheoria 80 (4): 350-367. 2014.The aim of this article is to provide an account of introspective knowledge concerning visual experiences that is in accordance with the idea of transparent introspection. According to transparent introspection, a person gains knowledge of her own current mental state M solely by paying attention to those aspects of the external world which M is about. In my view, transparent introspection is a promising alternative to inner sense theories. However, it raises the fundamental question why a perso…Read more
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67The real trouble with intentionalityPhilosophical Explorations 11 (2). 2008.I argue that the project of naturalizing intentionality is misconceived. Intentionality should not be considered as a challenge to our naturalistic world-view, but rather as something which gives rise to a logical problem: how to save the principle of indiscernibility of identicals from apparent counterexamples arising from intensional discourse.
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450Das Problem der IntentionalitätMentis. 2004.Many contemporary philosophers find intentionality challenging because of its apparent resistance to integration into a naturalistic worldview. Consequently, they strive to make intentionality intelligible as part of the natural world. The central thesis of this book is that such an approach does not do justice to the philosophical significance of the problem. The problem of intentionality lies at a different level, namely the challenge to the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals. Add…Read more
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356Singuläre Propositionen und das Fassen eines GedankensAllgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 36 (1): 71-93. 2011.This essay develops the thesis that Frege’s notion of grasping does not refer to some special psychological relation between a subject and a proposition. Instead, the verb “to grasp” is a contextually defined technical term that, taken by itself, has no meaning. If that is right, then not only Frege’s resentment to the idea of grasping singular propositions is unfounded. The view that intentionality without representations is possible, championed by some advoca…Read more
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562Infallibility, Acquaintance, and Phenomenal ConceptsDialectica 70 (2): 139-168. 2016.In recent literature, there is a strong tendency to endorse the following argument: There are particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible; if there are particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences that are infallible, then the infallibility of those judgments is due to the relation of acquaintance; therefore, acquaintance explains why those particular judgments about one's current phenomenal experiences are infallible. The aim of this pa…Read more
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66Aussersein des reinen Gegenstandes – ein Berührungspunkt zwischen Meinong und QuineZeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 62 (3): 358-384. 2008.Zusammenfassung. Im ersten Teil meines Aufsatzes versuche ich zu zeigen, dass Meinongs Satz vom Aussersein des reinen Gegenstandes auf Quines These hinausläuft, dass Variablen, die im Einflussbereich eines intentionalen Verbs liegen, nicht durch Quantoren gebunden werden können, die sich außerhalb dieses Bereichs befinden. Im zweiten Teil diskutiere ich eine Schwierigkeit für meine Interpretation: Meinong hält – im Gegensatz zu Quine – an der Idee fest, dass intentionale Zustände Relationen zwis…Read more
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33Naturalisierung der IntentionalitätDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 54 (2): 189-200. 2006.Der Beitrag versucht zu zeigen, dass Intentionalität nicht deshalb problematisch ist, weil sie unser naturalistisches Weltbild herausfordert, sondern deshalb, weil sie gegen gewisse logische Intuitionen zu verstoßen scheint, und dass die angemessene Reaktion auf dieses Problem nicht darin besteht, über die physikalische Realisierung intentionaler mentaler Zustände, sondern über die logische Form intensionaler Sätze nachzudenken. Als Zeuge führt der Autor Fred Dretske an, dessen Analyse der Inten…Read more
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466Die Transparenz des GeistesSuhrkamp. 2012.The key message of this book is that we come to know our own mental states, not by peering inward, but by focusing on the aspects of the external world to which we are intentionally related in virtue of having the mental states in question. Though many philosophers think that the idea of transparency, as it is called, may apply to self-knowledge of some mental states, it is often regarded as hopeless to widen its scope to self-knowledge of mental states in general—for it seems that not all menta…Read more
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